Rooting interest: Gerald Wallace is a fan of Sox, Pats
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| Photo by John Wilcox |
"At home with my family, spending time with my family, enjoying it," Wallace said. "Being traded is a process that nobody likes to through so it kind of caught me off guard, shocked me."
It’s easy to praise Kelly Olynyk and Humphries for being out and about in the city, seeing the sites. But they're younger guys that don’t have kids so I’ll give Wallace a pass. I was chief among the camp about him not wanting to be here though, I thought he only cared about collecting a paycheck – a rather large one at that. But if you ask him, he says otherwise:
"I think the main thing that a lot of people that have taken out of this is that I didn’t want to come, I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to be a part of it. That’s so far from the truth," Wallace said. "I think the main thing was, with me being in the league for 13 years, I’ve been traded three times in the past three or four years. This trade kind of caught me off guard, I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t know anything about it.
"It wasn’t like my agent talked to me about it and said, ‘There’s a possibility there might be a trade' or something. I was basically sitting at home with family and friends, we were sitting around the table, playing cards and getting ready to watch the NBA draft, and, bam, it hits the screen. I don’t know anything about it. It kind of caught me off guard, it put me in shock. You kind of sit down and look at yourself and wonder what happened. Is there something I could have done better to stay?”
Maybe Wallace second guessing himself about his production in Brooklyn is a good thing, fresh motivation to start a new chapter here in Boston – a city that Wallace has always been a fan of:
"I'm actually happy to be here in Boston. I’ve always loved the city of Boston when I came here. Besides, I’m a Red Sox and Patriots fan, so I’m close to my teams. I’m happy to be here, and I want to be here. A fresh start, it’s kind of hard when you’ve been in the league 13 years, coming somewhere that’s got to start all over. But for me, I think it’ll be challenging, trying to turn this team around like I did in Charlotte, kind of help these guys out, and push as far as we can here."
Gerald Wallace a fan of the Pats and Sox?? What? Really weird but he also elaborated more on how that came to fruition:
Well, I’m from Alabama. We don’t have a professional team there. I like Big Papi [David Ortiz], I’ve always followed Big Papi and enjoy watching him and those guys. That’s how I became a Red Sox fan. I’m just fascinated with [Patriots quarterback Tom] Brady. I like watching Brady play. I’ve been a big, big Brady fan since he started in the league. I’ve been following him since Day 1, him and coach [Bill] Belichick. They are my favorite team. Actually, in my house, I have a Patriots room -- big Patriots and Red Sox fan. I have a couple Brady jerseys. A couple pictures of Brady, Belichick, the championship teams. A couple of the Super Bowl pictures. I have a lot of those Red Sox World Series [items]. I have an autographed bat from Ortiz ... and a lot of things from my career in the NBA."
Pretty cool that a guy from Alabama would pick teams from Boston as his go-to favorites. Maybe some of Papi’s and TB12’s winning ways can rub off on Wallace.
VIA Chris Forsberg ESPNBOSTON.com
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